forward motion
by worshippingbones
Summary: Kieren struggles with moving forward post-finale. Character insights, sketches, vignettes.
1. Chapter 1

Kieren was moving, both very fast and not at all.

For all literal purposes, he was laying in his bed, in his room, in his parent's house, perfectly still. The covers rested on his chest, folded just so that they brushed his chin, and his eyes were alternately locked on the ceiling and squeezed tight.

The summer afternoon seemed to hum. Down the block, a boring neighbor was revving their lawnmower, and the low grumble blended with the buzz of bees outside his window screen.

A breeze drifted over him, bothering the watercolor papers tacked to the wall, the only movement in the dim room.

The sun was setting and he was cold. Neighboring children were running around in the lawn in bare feet. Kieren could smell the grass, feel the dirt as clearly as he felt the breeze and the blanket on his chest, hear their excited shrieking as they tackled each other. He remembered running around and playing.

It was a week removed. Rick was a week removed.

Night fell soon after and Kieren was in a hopeless trance.

He was still motionless aside from the occasional sigh and scratch, but the room didn't see how his brain was working, what his heart was doing, what hoops his senses were jumping through. The flashbacks had faded by force, having been thrown a hard elbow by grief and shock. Few things could've overridden what he had been through, he figured grimly, except this grievous loss. A blessing? A curse?

The week had been a blur. He remembered that normal- living- people had jobs and responsibilities. He lay in bed, pretended to eat, reminisced, cried. He went on walks. He tried to draw.

This went on for a few weeks until he got up one day with sudden inspiration, flung the covers off with more conviction, stood up and put his cover up and contacts on with more dedication that he had been able to muster in weeks.

This was his second lease on life. This was a chance to start over – totally, completely, forever. There was no Rick, but that wasn't the only thing that had changed. He had a new appreciation for life and everything that came with it. He lost exactly what he had lost before. He couldn't act like the feeling was new.

He couldn't hide forever. If anything, Rick would want him moving on.

So he'd move on as best he could, he figured. There was no way to tell if it would work unless he put on those shoes and that hoodie and strode out of that house towards goals.

This helped. It felt like waking up.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the Walker's personal tragedy, the discrimination did not stop. Kieren may have woken up, but he was ahead of the pack in his determination – the sight of him made hands slide over children's eyes, made otherwise calm individuals cross the street, made OPEN signs flip CLOSED early.

He had never experienced anything like this in his prior life. It was raw and ugly and surprising, but most days, Jem insisted on accompanying him to and from errands – just in case. No longer packing, but she'd slap her HVF armband on over her jacket and sass anyone who looked at him funny. He was still her brother. He was her Kieren and that would never change, pooled arteries.

She was curious about the condition in a morbid way, and had a way of bursting forth with questions that intimidated her much shyer brother. He occasionally thought that she and Amy might get along, if they hadn't started off on such a bad foot. Two powerful personalities like Jem and Amy had the power to do anything, if fused right. He made a note to introduce the two when Amy came back, if she ever did.

She piped up with thoughts whenever she wanted to, just like Amy, and the similarity always brightened his day.

There were things you had to expect from Jemima, like the imminent stomping upon unbelievably painful memories. She peppered him with strange questions while he worked at perfecting his new eating system.

They had designed it to save face in public and restore Kieren's habits back to normal as much as possible. Kieren would always order a small meal, as small as he could, and then tackle the meal very, very slowly. He would put small chunks in his mouth and chew, then politely bend down to spit it into a napkin. Halfway through the meal he would declare (for anyone in the vicinity to hear) that he was absolutely stuffed and couldn't do the rest and Jem would take it from there.

It had been shockingly useful. Once suspecting diners near them saw him putting food in his mouth they'd stop staring and go back to eating, apparently completely convinced that he was "safe".

Jem would do anything to lighten his mood. They went out to eat once a week.

Just like he and Rick used to.


	3. Chapter 3

A month later, Kieren got a job.

A month after that, Kieren got into a fight with Jem's boyfriend that he lost, embarrassingly and predictably, in front of a bunch of people at a bar. He had always been slight of stature – a perfect compliment to Rick's bulk – and his mother fretted and cried as she looked over the ripped skin on his face. There were no bruises anymore; the punch had simply torn a small bit of his delicate skin under his right eye. He sat on the couch, raw knuckles seeming to burn as he tightened his hands into fists and then relaxed them, blocking out the angry drone of his father lecturing him on violence, manhood, and responsibility. What he did, though, had moral consequences past a 20-something getting into a bar fight.

PDS sufferers were often seen as uncontrollable or on the verge of violent outbreaks, which was part of the reason the public had so much difficulty assimilating them back into communities. What many people at the local bar knew was that a rotter had gotten angry out of nowhere and attacked a young man and his girlfriend. What they didn't know is that the man's name was Brandon and he had provoked Kieren. What they also didn't know was that the girlfriend was the rotter's sister, and that the man had gone down swinging and shouting slurs against Kieren's condition. The last thing they didn't know was that the rotter hadn't attacked, he had punched, and the victim had punched back, with a lot more accuracy and muscle behind the fist.

Jem came home shortly after Kieren had settled on the couch, inspecting his new gash in a hand mirror. His parents had given up on alternating between lecturing and fretting, and had retired to separate parts of the house to worry. Jem settled beside Kieren, unable to look him in the eye.

"Sorry 'bout him. I'm kinda glad you did that."

Kieren sighed and tossed the mirror aside. "I'm not. I didn't think about it. I'm gonna be in deep shit."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think people saw? Nobody heard us talking, they just saw me.. lunge."

"You—you definitely punched, though!" Jem leapt off the couch. "You punched him! It's not like you bit him! Oh, shit, I hadn't thought—Kieren, that's really bad."

"I know."

"Don't go out tonight." She readjusted her ponytail and stretched before heading out of the room. "I'll grab you whatever you need."

Kieren spent the night watching bad TV, flipping his phone around in his lap, eyes unfocused, waiting for Jem to come home. She didn't, and he slid further and further down the couch, eventually succumbing to a deep sleep in which he had bright, shiny nightmares and dull dreams.

He was vaguely roused by the snippets of conversation between his parents, a closed door, a dropped glass and a curse word. The beep of the microwave, the absence of sound except for soft footsteps as someone stepped over his outstretched legs and turned the TV off, and the next time his eyes met light it was 7 AM in the morning. His parents took care not to wake him, and he found a note from them sitting on the scarred up end table next to the couch.

_Hi, Kier –_

_I'm off to work and your mum is going to be running errands all day. We'll do your shot when I get home._

_Do you have anything in mind for dinner tonight? _

_Text your sister for me and ask. _

_Love you, _

- _Dad_

The note was crumpled up and tossed in the waste bin as Kieren sighed and reached for his phone, certain that his sister wouldn't reply now, since he had been texting her all night. She was probably out with Brandon, he figured, and sent her a simple text with his dad's request. The house was silent and he sat with his phone in hand, dully lit, as he listened to the clicks and creaks of the house, the light summer rain on the windows.

Days like this – warm, wet, humid, quiet - made him feel like he was rotting, and he immediately reached up and touched the tiny torn bit under his eye. That could be covered up easily enough, but it was a nasty reminder.

There was no clotting blood and scabs and restorative cell work in his body now. People and accidents could make permanent impressions on him, things he would keep until- he died? He was killed? He gave up again?

It felt permanent, and that was one of the strangest things. As Amy had said, he had smashed the clock. The only end he feared was an end brought by a different hand. He could terminate his participation whenever he wanted to. There was no natural guide to take him away anymore.

He could do anything he wanted, he reminded himself, as long as he avoided more discrimination.


	4. Chapter 4

Days later, someone at work noticed him and decided to get loud.

On one hand, Kieren understood. The concept of him was terrifying – the way a tiger or a virus is terrifying, unstoppable, alien and stronger than you – but on the other hand, he was not that person anymore and he was just trying to get his minimum wage for the day.

People occasionally looked at him too long. He never fooled himself into thinking that no one noticed, and he was used to looking up from the register to find a gaggle of teenage girl eyes fixed on him, huddled together, breath suspended in their throats, too shy to leave and too scared to come to the counter. This woman had a different way of handling it.

"I can't believe it," she piped up, tottering to the counter on unsteady legs, gripping a walker to assist in her shuffle. "It's really one of them!"

Kieren had dreaded this day.

"You're a dead boy, aren't you! Look up at me. Here, c'mon, look up at me."

Kieren kept his eyes lowered, pretending to do anything at the cash register, anything to not engage her. He was alone in front, his other coworkers were out of earshot.

"You've got some nerve, working in public." Everyone in line was looking him over, analyzing the skin, the hair, the eyes, the scratch on his cheek. "Can you believe this thing serves people food?"

A few people moved away from her, avoiding confrontation; Kieren's eyes welled with tears, frightened by being put on the spot and shamed by the honest, blatant hatred he was being served.

"Not safe to have him here. I'm going to speak with the manager."

"My manager knows," Kieren said softly, speaking for the first time since the beginning of her tirade. "I'm on my medication. Please move so- so that other customers can get in line, ma'am."

Something happened then that Kieren wouldn't forget for the rest of his life.

In his short time on this earth, he had been thrown a lot of looks, both good and bad. He had seen the eyes soften and the lips turn up, he had seen the brow furrow and the lips purse, he had seen a grin widen the face of a friend and a smirk twist the face of a foe, but he had never been looked at like this.

The woman gave him a glare beyond measure. In the moments that he was stunned, he wondered if he had just imagined it – maybe he was making a mountain out of a molehill, because her hatred seemed to burst out of her form in that look. It was a volatile mix of hatred and cold, deep fear that burned through her milky blue eyes in the mere seconds she made eye contact with him before turning away. It put the fear of god in him, and for just a moment, he wondered if he was the earth's plague in human form. He wondered if he should've been put to rest via shotgun years ago, and he wondered if he should be underground, not wearing an apron and punching in orders. He wondered if he could kill himself again.


	5. Chapter 5

(Big ol' fat chapter for the dedicated. There you go, guys! Thank you for reading!)

Two months later, Kieran started college.

By now, he was numerically much older than some of the participants – the quad and pathways were crowded with nervous new adults just barely out of their teenage skin, where as he was already in his twenties. He often felt the nervous urge to make up for the time he lost while he had been dead, running around and killing. He was trying to do more than he could, which was a coping method that the brochures had warned his parents about. He didn't fit everything on that bulleted list, but that one was certainly right.

His cashiering job was doing well. He was a steady worker with a shy smile and a quick hand for money. His condition was the only thing that ever stood as a detriment to his work ethic, as he found it hard to smile with children open-mouthed, staring.

He did everything he could to comfort these kids – even going so far as to throw in a free cookie and thank the mother after the transaction. He wondered how it felt, growing up in this world. These kids had no idea of the outbreak. They knew vaguely that before their birth, something monsterous had happened, and now there was a whole different breed of human in the world. What would they think growing up? Would they care, or would they sleep through that part of their history lessons, skinny preteen arms resting on their textbooks and sliding off their desks?

He had recently submitted three art pieces to a scholarship contest and was checking his email on his phone for any reply when a familiar face loomed at the edge of his vision. How had they gotten in so silently? He immediately slipped his phone in his back pocket and smiled as big as he could to compensate for his sloppy attention, but the grin fell off his face.

"Kieran, you need to come home."

"Why are you here? You could've just called me. I'm working."

His mother twisted her hands together and he knew immediately it had to do with his condition.

"There was a warning tonight, some terrorist graffiti at city hall about killing PDS sufferers tonight. It's all over the news. I didn't want you taking the bus. I'm here to drive you home."

His first reaction was to push her away, annoyed at her motherly worries and her coddling nature, but this was the name of the game now. If there were threats, there were serious possibilities of him being singled out and as much as he hated hiding, the best thing to do was the hole up at home until the all clear sounded on the news.

"I need to talk to my boss first. Don't worry, okay? I'll be a few minutes."

He disappeared into a back room, slim hands untying his apron behind his back, as his mother tapped her nails on the counter and checked the local news on her phone. Good thing it was dead in the store, she thought, or else she would've had to wait to take poor Kier home.

"I hate doing this, honey."

"I know."

They were silent as they walked out to car and Kieran thought weakly of ways to resist and strike back at his faceless oppressors. He had needed that money and he had only been on shift two hours before his mother showed up. All because of an ignorant threat.

"Better safe than sorry, y'know."

"I know."

He ducked into the car and buckled in, instinctively sliding downward in his seat to avoid chances of a driver looking over and being spooked. His entirely life had become catering to the living population in an effort not to scare them.

They drove home without incident and Kieran stared out the window at the gentle sunset, scratched and bisected by the dark, leafless trees. It was chalking up to be a creepy night even without the lockdown.

"I'm pretty sure all the families are doing this, or at least I hope," his mother said as she ushered him into the house and bolt locked the door. "I'll get the supplies. Just in case."

His father wouldn't be home for another three hours and Kieran stood around numbly in the hallway, watching his mother dash out to the shack in their yard where she kept her 'supplies', an apply named chainsaw and several nasty-looking bashing weapons.

He'd never get over the ease with which she wielded the chainsaw, but then she remembered what she had lived through and the hell she had to fight against every day of the Rising. She dropped the chainsaw next to the door and set a club against the couch. "I hate these, but I have to," she repeated. "May as well get some food and settle down for the night, hmm?"

"May as well," Kieran echoed. "Stay away from the windows, doll," she called as he drifted into the kitchen, wondering what he could pretend to eat that night.

…

Aside from a gunshot that made his mother jump out of her skin, the night was calm, punctuated by anxious coughs from either of his parents, who had sat rigid on the couch together for quite a few hours, TV down low, hands on their knees. Kier had hid in his bedroom, trying to draw, nerves too fried.

The body count surfaced the next day as Kieran was getting dressed.

Two 'rotters' burned alive, one family robbed. Who mourned? The news was unsure of how to frame and resorted to just spitting out the information and then getting testimony from shaken living counterparts. He could've spit. He had a lot to say, not that they would've aired it. Media coverage of his 'kind' was scarce, as people generally didn't like dead opinions.

He was thankful his mother had picked him up from work.


End file.
